


No Escape

by tjmystic



Category: Brick (2005), Monroe: Class of '76 (2005)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drugs, F/M, Film Noir, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:27:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Monroe just wanted to escape his panic, his fears, his job.  He didn't want to be wrapped up in a teenage drug ring in California, nor the little blonde who so desperately needed to get out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Escape

No Escape (1/?)  
a Brick/Monroe Class of ‘76 crossover

Rating: R for drugs, cursing, and potential sex

Author’s Note: Happy birthday Kelly!!!! Sorry it took me so long to get this up - I know you’ve been looking forward to having someone else right an alternateBobbycharacter/alternateEmiliecharacer fic :) Anyway, I’ll keep this note short - hope you enjoy, everyone :D

Oh, and P.S. - for those of you who haven’t seen Emilie’s movie Brick, I feel the need to explain something. Namely, because it’s like a mock 20’s-crime-drama set in a modern day highschool, there’s a lot of weird slang used by the teenage characters. As such, I provide with you a link to this list which will help explain at least a few of the terms.

 

Tom Monroe leaned forward in his car, his hands pressed to the steering wheel, his forehead pressed to his hands. He shouldn’t have drunk so much last night. It was just that he couldn’t bear the thought of going to the hotel. To be fair, he didn’t much like being alone in any room or building anymore. And it was such a short walk to the bar inside the airport. 

He groaned, rolling down the dark window of his rental Hyundai and rolling up the sleeves of his smoker’s jacket. He hadn’t expected it to get so warm so early in the morning, but, then, it was southern California, and he probably should’ve known better. 

He tilted his head to the side so he could look at the school across the street. He hoped that he didn’t look like a creepy pedophile, scoping out he kids for some unknown depravity. Taking pictures, drawing figures, picking them off one by one…

Tom shook his head – those sorts of ideas didn’t bear thinking about. Besides, he’d only picked out this spot because it was the least sunny and most derelict, as was the high school across the street. It rather reminded him of home.

Home the way he wanted to remember it, at any rate. Without the cases, without the killing… without Kate. No more of that now, though – now, he was just a regular citizen, a regular man. And far enough away from that mess that he’d never have to think of it again.

“Hey, Tug, seems like I’m gettin’ a nice pick today.”

Tom whipped around, confused both by the fact that someone was talking to him and what was being said.

“I’m sorry, I don’ think –”

But the words choked in his throat. He’d been expecting… well, he didn’t know exactly what he was expecting. He just knew that it was this. Wasn’t her.

She was absolutely angelic, something out of a classic photoshoot from the 30s. A young Ingrid Bergman, his mind supplied, thinking back to that movie Casablanca that Kate had made him watch with her before… well, before. She was small, though, and made even smaller by the ragged sweater she was buried in. Almost mousy, what with her pale skin and flowing dishwater blonde hair. 

She blushed bright red, and he could feel his cheeks mimicking her, having been caught staring agape the whole time.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped, holding up her hand to her cheek to cover the tinge on her face. Her sleeve slipped down before she could stop it, and Tom noticed a purpling vein around the inside of her elbow. “I thought you were someone else.”

Tom shrugged indifferently, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her arm. There was something familiar about that bruise. “Not a problem. Everyone makes mistakes.”

She smiled at him, and his gaze flickered back to her face. She smiled easily, happily, like only a young girl could do. The reflection of the school glinted in his mirror, and he cringed – she was a student. He was gawping at a student.

He opened his mouth to apologize, to backpeddle his way out of this awkward moment as quickly as he could, but another voice cut him off.

“Yo, Em! Em!”

Both Tom and the girl looked down the sidewalk. A tall boy with curly black hair and broken glasses, the girl’s total opposite, leaned heavily against a telephone poll with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Em – if that was what her name actually was – blanched at the sight, and Tom immediately processed that her bruise might be from an abusive boyfriend. He bit his tongue – it wasn’t his business, least of all because he was no longer a detective. 

“D’you need a ride?” he asked anyway. He wanted to smash his head into the wheel.

Em rocked back and forth on the concreted. “I… I’m waiting for somebody, actually. Probably be best if you just slammed it.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “‘Slammed it’?”

“Hit the road,” she giggled, but there was something unnatural about the sound. “Drove off.”

Much as he wanted to avoid it, Tom couldn’t keep his eyes from scanning her face yet again. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a cop, nor that she was probably young enough to be his granddaughter. If she was in trouble, he needed to help her. That wasn’t the job – that’s just who he was. 

“Are you sure?” he asked slowly, suddenly hyperaware of his thick accent. “I haven’t got anywhere to be, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

She snorted, causing her nose to wrinkle, and he really shouldn’t be paying such close attention to her. “Yeah right,” she laughed. “Everybody’s gettin’ somewhere on the nail. Right away,” she translated. 

The boy across the street took a few steps closer, and Tom frowned. “I’m telling the truth. If you need somewhere to go, we can go.”

Her eyes, crystal blue and shining, flitted back and forth, either because she was thinking or she hadn’t actually heard him, he wasn’t sure. Her pupils were abnormally dilated, too, but he couldn’t come up with any explanation for that. Not unless she was really that terrified of the boy on the sidewalk. But then she subconsciously rubbed at the mark on her arm, and it finally began to click. He’d seen that look before, not as often since the early 90s but enough that he could recognize it without a second’s hesitation. This girl was a druggie. And not just any druggie – she was high as a kite on heroin.

“Emily!”

Tom groaned and popped his head out the window, half expecting to see the boy again even though the voice he’d heard was female. Instead, a sleek brunette girl with a haughty look to her eyes bounded out from one of the alleyways, bobbing precariously on her high heels though she didn’t show any discomfort.

Emily sighed, her eyes looking at the other girl as if she were her fairy godmother. “Hey, Laura. What’re you doing here?”

“Come to get you,” she huffed, pulling her in tight to her body. Tom couldn’t help but notice that the brunette’s fake talons pierced Emily’s skin. “Tug’s been beating eggs waiting for you.”

Emily’s eyes tilted in confusion. “But he isn’t here.” 

Laura patted Emily’s hand patronizingly. “That’s cause he’s parked on 9th avenue, not 19th. Really, ya think he’d post himself where the bulls and V. P. Trueman could catch him?”

Emily looked down at her sneakers and shuffled them. “Guess not. Sorry.”

The other girl smiled indulgently and pecked Emily on the cheek. “Nothing to be sorry for, Em. We just gotta hoof it back real quick. I booked Brad’s bench for the day. Ya know how the Pin hates to be kept waiting.”

Emily nodded frantically and allowed Laura to pinch her even harder as she yanked her to the alley. Tom wondered if she even felt the pain.

She followed Laura back into the shadows like a dog on a leash, but she paused just before she hit the wall to turn back in Tom’s direction. Her glance wasn’t missed by the other girl, but Tom couldn’t see her expression in the darkness.

“Hold it up a sec, Laura. Just gotta get rid of this Shamus.”

This time he did see the other girl’s face, and, for a split second, she looked as furious as any of the criminals he dealt with in the last fifteen years. 

“You don’t hook a bull unless you wanna get gored, Em,” Laura glared, though she managed to temper it into something Tom guessed was intended to look motherly. “Pinch him quick and then meet me on the other side, ‘kay?”

Emily nodded, and waited for Laura to completely disappear around the corner before she came back to his car. He was sure that his bemusement showed, because, even as doped up as she was, she noticed it in a heartbeat. 

“What’s up?” she asked. 

There were a lot of places to start, but he quickly decided on, “I’m not Irish. I’m Scottish.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “Thanks for letting me know, Sean Connery, but why?”

Tom smirked. “You called me Seamus. That’s an Irish name.”

She giggled again, and his stomach jumped into his throat. It also filled with bile – this girl wasn’t even legal and he was sweating around her like a teenage boy with a crush. 

“No, Shamus. Means ‘private investigator’. Keep up with me now,” she smiled. “And we’re going to a car, not an actual bench. You must be real outta touch.”

“Well, like I said, I’m Scottish,” he grumbled. 

She smiled brighter and leaned in through his window. She was close enough that he could smell her perfume and the powder burned on her neck, and he forced himself not to inhale. “I just wanted to tell you thanks, Mister…?”

“Monroe,” he answered. “Tom Monroe.”

“Emily Kostich. And I really meant it – thanks. A lot of people wouldn’t offer what you offered to somebody like me.”

Before he could ask what exactly she was like, she patted him on the shoulder and skipped off the sidewalk. She disappeared between the buildings as quickly as he could blink.

Tom groaned and leaned back in his seat. This wasn’t what he signed up for when he left the UK – thirteen hours in and already a wreck. 

He glanced up at the rearview mirror, but the boy by the school had already disappeared. Tom frowned – whatever it was, there was something about him that he couldn’t trust. And there was something about that girl Laura that he trusted even less.

19th street, she’d said. 

Tom cursed and pulled down his shades – he was just giving into habit. Just having a hard time breaking himself from his job. He wasn’t interested in a girl a third his age, much less one who decided it was a good idea to pump her veins full of smack. 

He kept that in mind as he pulled off the curb and drove in the direction the two girls had disappeared.


End file.
